418 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



JuiiY, 1921. 



dozen queen-cells. Now as they believe 

 they are superseding the queen, they will 

 never kill her. When the cage is removed 

 and the queen liberated, of course the queen 

 will not lay in these cells; but, as she has 

 reached a stage of heavy egg-production, 

 she fills the worker combs with eggs at an 

 astonishing rate. I have examined the col- 

 ony the day after the queen was liberated 

 and have fre(juently found large quantities 



B'- holding one li;u>fl against the comb on the op- 

 posite side the teetli of the Push-in cage may be 

 firmly imbedded in the midrib of the tomb to pre- 

 vent the bees from tunneling under and releasing 

 the queen prematurely. It should be used on old dark 

 combs having a tough midrib, so that the teeth will 

 hold firmly. 



of eggs in three combs; so it will be seen 

 that not much time is lost for the queen, 

 since if she had not been laying when re- 

 leased, as is the case when she is released 

 from, the common mailing cage, it would 

 take her three or four days to build up to 

 the state of egg-laying that the queen has 

 that has just been released from the Push- 

 in cage. 



In using the queen-excluder with the com- 

 mon mailing cage, while it maj' be a help, 

 it is far from being a complete success. In 

 such a case the queen cannot lay, and if she 

 is released in two days, she may be killed; 

 and if left in four days, she will fret, as she 

 wants to get out of the cage so that she can 

 lay. Many queens will die in the mailing 

 cage from this cause. In the Push -in cage, 

 the queen seems perfectly contented and 

 goes right on laying. 



The queen-excluder is put on a little cage 

 that we call the "Eeception Cage." When 

 the queen arrives thru the mail, the small 

 piece of perforated tin on the mailing cage 

 is removed, and the queen and bees are al- 

 lowed to run up into the reception cage. A 

 cork is then placed in the opening of the 

 cage, the attendant bees will crawl out thru 

 the excluder and escape, while the queen 

 will remain in the cage. Doolittle said that 

 these worker bees cause much of the loss 

 in introducing queens, so we find it better 



to do away with them. The mailing cage is 

 burned, so any danger of disease is also 

 eliminated. 



Introducing Without Loss of a Single Queen 



Now I am going to make the sweeping 

 statement that I believe if this introducing 

 cage is used according to the simple direc- 

 tions, that the bees will never kill a queen. 

 What prompts me to make this statement is 

 the fact that I have introduced hundreds of 

 cpieens to colonies under all conditions, in- 

 cluding a number to laying workers, and 

 have never lost a single queen. A test that 

 is as severe as introducing queens to laying 

 workers is to introduce queens to colonies 

 that are being robbed. In many cases the 

 robbers were so bad that when I opened the 

 hive to release the queen, they poured into 

 the top of the hive in large numbers. Short- 

 ly after there would be a handful of dead 

 bees at the entrance, but the queen was 

 never injured. In one case the colony was 

 overcome and all the honey robbed out. 

 After dark I gave them a frame of honey 

 and contracted the entrance. The queen 

 was not injured but went merrily on with 

 her laying, despite the fact that robbers 

 were skirmishing around the entrance for 

 several days. Hives may be opened as soon 

 as the queen is released and as often after- 

 ward as desired, and the bees will never 

 ball her, for they already consider her as 

 their own queen. 



A number of others have reported that 

 they have done as well. A notable example 

 is Mr. Mendleson of Ventura, Calif. He 

 used a lai'ge number of these cages, intro- 



The Push-in cage is quite handy for caging the 

 queen to prevent swarming. The queen-cells should 

 all be destroyed at the time of caging the queen and 

 again in 9 or 10 days, the queen being released a 

 a day or two later. 



<lucing queens to many colonies, including 

 laying-worker colonies and reports that he 

 has not lost a single queen. Others have 

 reported a variety of uses to which they 

 have put this cage other than the introduc- 



